David Wyatt Aiken (March 17, 1828 – April 6, 1887) was a slave owner, Confederate army officer during the American Civil War and a postbellum five-term United States Congressman from South Carolina. Biography Early life Aiken was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina, and received his early education under private tutors. He attended the Mount Zion Institute in Winnsboro and graduated from South Carolina College in Columbia in 1849. He taught college for two years before marrying Mattie Gaillard in 1852 and engaging in agricultural pursuits, owning a plantation and travelling extensively in Europe and throughout the United States, where he spoke in defense of slavery to large crowds. He became the editor of the Winnsboro News and Herald, and was married a second time to Miss Smith of Abbeville, where Aiken settled and continued to farm. In 1855, Aiken became a founding member of the State Agricultural Society. He was a slave owner, and owned the Smith family slave plantation after marrying Smith, which held about 40 slaves. Civil War, Reconstruction In 1858 Aiken attended a political convention in Mobile, Alabama, and began speaking publicly in favor of secession. With South Carolina's secession and the advent of the Civil War, Aiken enlisted in the Confederate Army as a private in the 7th South Carolina Infantry. He was later appointed adjutant of the regiment and in 1862 was elected its colonel. He led it in the Peninsula and Northern Virginia Campaigns. He was severely wounded by a shot through his lungs at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. After his lengthy recovery, he commanded his regiment in the Gettysburg Campaign in Joseph B. Kershaw's brigade, seeing action near the Peach Orchard in the Battle of Gettysburg. However, lingering effects of his wound soon forced Aiken to administrative duty in Macon, Georgia for a year, before he resigned from the Confederate army in mid-1864 and returned home. He was a member of the State house of representatives from 1864–66 and served as secretary and treasurer of the State Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina in 1869. Aiken was a prominent figure in the Reconstruction-era Democratic party, and a leader in efforts to suppress the voting rights of recently emancipated slaves, and an advocate of "white man's government." He publicly called for the assassination of a black state legislator, Benjamin F. Randolph, saying “never to suffer this man Randolph to come